A member of the RCMP investigation team stands on a roadway Thursday where a woman abandoned her vehicle in August adjacent to the property where police have found human remains. - Image credit: Martha Wickett/Salmon Arm Observer.

Neighbours recount alarming discovery

Less than 40 metres from the spot where forensic specialists are sifting through dirt on a Silver Creek farm lies a roadway that leads to a bridge where a Silver Creek resident discovered an alarming sight.

About 8 a.m. on Aug. 28, Teddy Edes was checking on a bulldozer that he had left parked near the bridge on his 160 acres of land. Drawing closer, he saw a car stuck at the end of the bridge with its engine running and its lights on.

He noticed a pink slipper near the car.

Alarmed, he summoned help from one of his neighbours, Steven Langenegger.

Langenegger says Edes was agitated and hyperventilating when he arrived at his home.

Edes, who’s 80 and grew up in Salmon Arm, explains he didn’t want the car moved, because if a crime had been committed, the evidence would be gone.

The men called police from Langenegger’s home.

Langenegger, 77, explains that when he and Edes returned to the property, they found a grey Mazda, just as Edes had described it.

“Obviously somebody tried to back up in a hurry. I assumed they got intercepted at the bridge. The person wanted to back up, turn around and escape. Obviously she got stuck,” he says.

“We noticed a slipper close to the car, and then another one 20 feet away…”

Both he and Edes saw footprints from shoeless feet.

“She was terrified. She was running along that rocky road,” Edes says, adding the person must have really been running fast, with big strides. “I couldn’t even stretch my legs as far as her steps.”

They think the vehicle could have been there several hours.

Edes says this wasn’t the first time a vehicle had been stuck there in the soft sand. He says on another night, in the middle of the night, a woman who was presumed to be a prostitute or escort had been calling for help getting her car out. Edes says neighbours heard her and came over to help free the vehicle.

Police have expanded their search throughout the 24-acre property next door. While white tents cover one area behind the outbuildings, officials wearing white hard-hats, face masks and gloves are now sifting through dirt on the southern side of the property, less than 40 metres from the road where the car was abandoned two months earlier.

The property at 2290 Salmon River Road is owned by Wayne and Evelyn Sagmoen, parents of Curtis Wayne Sagmoen.

Curtis Sagmoen, born in 1980, appeared in Provincial Court in Vernon on Thursday, Oct. 26 via video, facing seven charges in connection with an incident Aug. 27 at a property on Salmon River Road, where a woman reported being threatened by a man with a firearm.

The woman had attended a prearranged meeting with a man in that area. The meeting had been set up via an online website utilized by escorts and sex workers.

Curtis Sagmoen has been charged with disguising his face with intent to commit an offence; intentionally discharging a firearm while reckless; uttering threats; careless use or storage of a firearm; pointing a firearm; possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose; and possession of a controlled narcotic.

Sagmoen was remanded in custody pending his next court appearance on Nov. 23. No more charges were added. His court matter lasted less than five minutes.

A police car is parked on the roadway where a woman abandoned her vehicle in August adjacent to the property where police found human remains. - Image credit: Martha Wickett/Salmon Arm Observer

Silver Creek resident Steven Langenegger was one of the two people who called police in August after discovering a hastily abandoned car on a property next to the farm where police have found human remains.